Chapter 4: SURVIVAL ECONOMICS
The underworld district announced itself with neon.
Flickering signs in a dozen languages lined the narrow streets, advertising services that ranged from questionable to illegal. The crowds here moved differently than in the main market—faster, heads down, nobody making eye contact. Everyone minding their own business because everyone had business worth minding.
My ribs still ached with each step, but the worst of the pain had faded to a manageable throb. The concussion symptoms were gone, replaced by a different kind of headache: the mathematics of survival.
No credits. No weapons. No allies. A bounty on my head worth ten thousand to anyone willing to collect.
I needed work.
The fixer's den was exactly where Ven Calder's memories suggested it would be—a doorway between a pawn shop and a decommissioned droid repair bay, marked only by a scratched symbol that meant nothing to me but everything to the right people. I pushed through the hanging beads and stepped inside.
The room was small, smoky, lit by a single overhead lamp that cast harsh shadows across stacked crates and scattered datapads. Behind a makeshift counter sat a Rodian—green skin, bulbous black eyes, antenna twitching as I entered.
"You're new."
Not a question. The Rodian's Basic was accented but clear.
"Looking for work."
"Everyone's looking for work."
I stood my ground. The Rodian studied me for a long moment, those insect eyes revealing nothing.
"Name?"
"Does it matter?"
A sound that might have been a laugh.
"Fair enough. I'm Rikka. What can you do?"
"Deliver things. Keep my mouth shut. Not die."
"The last one's harder than most think."
Rikka reached under the counter and produced a sealed package—small, rectangular, wrapped in black material that absorbed the light.
"Fifty credits. Across town, gambling district. Don't open it. Don't be late. Don't get caught."
I took the package. It weighed almost nothing.
"Who's receiving?"
"Twi'lek female, green skin, scar on her left lekku. She'll find you when you arrive at the Crimson Nexus. Password is 'thermal detonator.'"
I pocketed the package.
"Anything else I should know?"
Rikka's antenna twitched.
"Yes. If you get caught, you don't know me. If you talk, you don't wake up. Clear?"
"Crystal."
The gambling district was a thirty-minute walk through streets that grew progressively more dangerous. I kept to shadows, used side alleys, doubled back twice to check for tails. Old habits, burned deep by three combat tours.
The package pressed against my hip. I didn't need to open it to know what was inside—the weight, the size, the careful sealing all pointed to one thing.
Spice.
I was a drug courier now. Captain Cole Morgan, U.S. Army veteran, corporate security consultant, father of one, was delivering narcotics for pocket change on an alien planet.
Survival first. Morality second.
The mantra helped. Barely.
Halfway to my destination, I spotted an opportunity.
A drunk slumped against a wall in a narrow alley, passed out cold. Human male, middle-aged, wearing clothes that suggested he'd seen better days but still had some credits. His breathing was deep and regular—unconscious, not dead.
I stopped.
The touch-theft. I needed to understand it. Back at the crash, back with the Trandoshan, it had happened automatically—contact, transfer, no control. But if I could figure out the rules, maybe I could use it. Maybe I could survive.
Test it.
I approached the drunk carefully, checking both ends of the alley. Empty. Private.
I crouched down and deliberately brushed my fingers against his exposed wrist.
The jolt came immediately. Electricity crawling up my arm, that strange sense of something shifting, and then—
A chronometer appeared in my palm. Cheap, battered, probably worth five credits at most.
The drunk's other wrist still wore his other chronometer. He had two, apparently. I'd taken one.
Contact transfers items. Random selection.
I touched him again.
This time, a flask materialized—half-empty, smelling of something sharp and alcoholic. It had been in his pocket. Now it was in my hand.
Multiple contacts, multiple thefts.
I stood up, mind racing. The ability was consistent. Touch a person, receive one of their possessions. The selection seemed random—not necessarily the most valuable thing, not the closest thing, just... something.
But the Trandoshan's vibroblade had been his most valuable item. The credit chip from the cockpit had been useful.
Is there a pattern?
I didn't have time to figure it out now. The package needed delivering.
I pocketed the chronometer and flask and continued toward the Crimson Nexus.
The gambling den occupied three floors of a converted warehouse, all of them filled with smoke, noise, and desperation. Games I didn't recognize played on tables I couldn't identify, using currency and stakes that ranged from credits to favors to body parts.
I found a corner near the bar and waited.
The Twi'lek found me within five minutes—green-skinned, as described, with a thin scar running the length of her left head-tail. She moved through the crowd like water, arriving at my side without seeming to cross the intervening space.
"Thermal detonator."
I handed over the package.
She didn't open it immediately. First, she studied my face with eyes that had seen too much.
"You're new."
"So I've been told."
"Rikka doesn't usually use new faces for this route."
"Maybe she's expanding operations."
The Twi'lek's lips curved slightly—not quite a smile.
"Maybe."
She opened the package. Inside, as expected: small containers of crystalline powder. Spice. Probably glitterstim, based on the color.
The Twi'lek counted the containers, checked their seals, and nodded.
"Fifty credits."
She produced a credit chip and pressed it into my palm. The contact was brief—her fingertips barely touched my skin.
Nothing happened.
Gloves. The gloves she's wearing.
The Twi'lek wore thin black gloves, standard attire for the underworld. It hadn't registered until now.
"Rikka has more work if you're reliable."
"I'm reliable."
"We'll see."
She disappeared into the crowd as smoothly as she'd arrived.
I found a rooftop with a view of the district and sat on the edge, letting my legs dangle over the drop.
Fifty credits.
I counted them three times. Held the chip up to the neon light and examined it from every angle.
In my old life, I'd managed security contracts worth millions. I'd had a house, a car, a son who was probably wondering why his father never came home from the hospital. I'd had a 401k and health insurance and a favorite coffee shop near Fort Bragg.
Now fifty credits felt like a fortune.
A laugh escaped me. Short, bitter, quickly suppressed.
Someone might hear.
I looked at the stolen chronometer. Cheap junk, as expected. The flask was emptier than I'd thought—barely a swallow of something that burned on the way down.
But the experiment had proven something. The ability worked consistently. Touch equaled theft. Multiple contacts, multiple items.
The question was control.
What if I could choose what to take? What if I touched someone wealthy—a merchant, a crime boss, a guild hunter—and selected their most valuable possession?
What might appear then?
The question burned in my mind as I climbed down from the rooftop.
I needed more data. More tests. More contacts.
And Rikka had more work.
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